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Comment by aswanson | Hacker News Reader

I think this is the only acquisition they have made that makes sense in retrospect.

I would say Pyra (Blogger), Picasa, Keyhole (Google Earth), Urchin / Measure Map (Google Analytics), YouTube, DoubleClick, FeedBurner and Grand Central / gizmo5 (Google Voice) have all worked out nicely in retrospect. Others in progress like ITA and AdMob should also be wins.

A lot of their smaller buys were for staff, so it's much harder to say if those panned out.

Google Maps and Google Earth were great acquisitions.

Forgot about those. Don't know if Earth added anything of value but Maps, certainly. Still not a great track record overall, though.

All it takes is a few out of the many!

I think I saw a video on YouTube saying otherwise. But I may be wrong.

Is that the one that said it was finally cash flow positive after half a decade? http://www.webtvwire.com/analysts-claim-youtube-on-course-fo...

Nope. I think it was the one explaining that YouTube is the world's second largest search engine as well as first search choice for an entire generation or something along these lines. But I'm not sure cause I only read between the lines.

Understood. Well, with that in mind, I guess the bottom line never matters...just what's in between.

The bottom line only matters in the long run or if you are seriously short on cash. There is nothing inherently bad or wrong about running a department at a loss for a few years if you have the cash flow to cover it and doing so gives you a long term strategic advantage.

Agreed.

Totlol is a great site idea, by the way. Gonna visit with my kiddies, nice work.

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